Very interesting, but I doubt it will ever be available in the USA. OSHA and the EPA weenies would be apoplectic about the volatile and caustic chems, potential for spills, etc. The process generates glycerol as a 'waste' product as well as other filtered output that needs disposal.

How cost effective can this be? Unless you're operating a restaurant or food service, it would take a long time to accumulate the used vegetable oil for a 20 liter batch. How long does it take your family to go through five gallons of oil? Then you gotta buy methanol and methylate...

The data sheets are a few years old. I wonder how many they've actually sold.

If I were to get one it would be as a stored backup for use after a SHTF event that renders environmental regulations irrelevant. Of course, then I'd need to get myself a diesel powered generator and vehicle. You can pick up old diesel Mercedes pretty cheap these days, though.

An event that renders regs irrelevant would wipe out the supply chain for the unit's raw materials. You can get used veg. oil from restaurants now, but how many restaurants will be open after the SHTF?

Where are you going to get the methylate? Yeh, you can use methanol and lye; and indeed you can make methanol by distilling wood and the fire's ashes can be used to make lye. But unless you have a good source for lots of vegetable oil, why bother?

Post-SHTF, I think it makes more sense to explore biogas production. You can make biogas (essentially methane) with anerobic digestion of any biomass. Scrape off the fan and generate electrics. ;-))

Sure, you can make biodiesel out of any vegetable oil. (BTW, canola is an edible rapeseed.) Ken ain't gonna grow rapeseed in his back yard, press the oil out of it, digest the rest of the rapeseed biomass into methanol, and make lye from ashes all to produce enough fuel to run his generator for a few days.

You can get 100 gallons of oil or more per acre if you know what you're doing, but it needs a well prepared soil, weed and disease control, good drainage, adequate water and careful harvesting to achieve these yields. We're looking at an industrialized agricultural process here, Bill. Not something that novice farmers are gonna get right.

Me, use this? It'd be far, far easier to just take a slight tour out of town, and just put up a filter setup to get the diesel, than get low-yield bio-stuff.....after all, this is Texas.

Or better yet, there's a small group, just northwest of Houston, that specializes in chemical plants.

*sigh* a small chemical pilot plant, that can make just about any chemical you need, cost over $3,000,000, but with that you can make anything from epoxy to structural plastics to fuel. With all the parts you need, to make about a dozen pilot plants, just in their parts yard..... (Be still, my techie heart)

Ok. So I did a bit of poking around this morning wondering what one can do with all the glycerin that comes from making biodiesel. Found Springboard Biodiesel which is much further along than the Biobot folks.

if you watch the video on how to make nitroglycerin...please..please...please...do NOT try as demonstrated...this kid was using colored water..and it's a good thing, because he would have blown himself up..and he missed several critical steps...involving strong caustic soda to "sweeten" the NG..making it a little more stable...we also add several other chemicals..all readily available..which desensatize it and make it relativly safe to handle and transport...

I didn't mean to post that as a how-to-do-it vid, but just to point out the possibility. The kid says right at the top that he's not using real reagents. If/when the time comes that making things that go boom is necessary there are excellent resources and people with real skills/experience available.